‘Christmas With The Kranks’: Let’s Play ‘Hey, That Movie is Racist’

To show how easy it is to read things into things–like the left does all the time–let’s take the terrible Christmas movie Christmas With The Kranks and show how the film is “racist.”

The 2004 movie starring Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis and Dan Aykroyd is really dreck as far as movies go. It’s even bad for schmaltzy Christmas fare. But there is a sequence in it that proves it is racist… at least if we use the left’s reckoning system.

So, the plot of the film is set up when Luther and Nora Krank (Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis) find out that their daughter (who cares) is spending Christmas away from home for the first time.

Instead of having a traditional Christmas at home with decorations, a tree, and the works, the Kranks decide they are going on a cruise to sunny whereeverwedon’tcare. But when the neighbors find out, we find out it’s a neighborhood transgression on the block’s Christmas tradition tyranny.

That Christmas tradition tyranny is lorded over by local busybody and self-appointed “mayor” of the neighborhood, Vic Frohmeyer (a portly Dan Aykroyd).

We the benighted view discover that everyone in the neighborhood is mad because the Kranks are leaving town and not buying a Christmas tree from the local boy scouts, not putting the giant frosty the snowman upon their roof, not having a Christmas get together, not… well, you get the picture.

Luther is flabbergasted by all the Christmas St. Adolphs in his neighborhood. After all, the Kranks feel that they can do what ever they want on Christmas. This IS America, isn’t it?

So, blah, blah, blah and bah humbug, assails the viewer for a while from the curmudgeonly Luther. But then the Kranks find out that their daughter is coming home anyway and the whole vacation plan is thrown into uproar. Uh, oh, now the Kranks have to do a super quick turn around and decorate for a Christmas party anyway. So, Luther and the wife (a very aged and plain-looking Jamie Lee Curtis, I might add) start running all over the place trying to find the needed party supplies.

And here is where the racism comes in…

As it happens, one of Luther’s neighbors is leaving town and not staying for Christmas to partake in the neighborhood festivities.

He is good old neighbor Wes Trogden (Mark Christopher Lawrence). Luthor goes across the street to ask for a bit of help from Good ol’ Wes.

But wait. What’s racist about this?

Well, good ol’ Wes Trogden and his family are black.

So what, you ask?

Note the premise of this film. Everyone was mad at the Kranks because they were going to leave town for Christmas and not be on hand for the traditional neighborhood celebration.

But good ol’ Wes Trogden and his family were leaving, too. And yet, not one neighbor seemed to care they were going.

Why didn’t all the white families want their black neighbors to stay? Why weren’t they just as mad that the Trogdens were leaving?

Also, why were the Trogdens leaving town, anyway? Was it because they had to leave town to see their families on Christmas? And did they have to leave their cushy suburban home because the rest of their family was down in the inner city and couldn’t afford a palatial home in the suburbs?

And why was this the only black family in the movie, anyway? Is the movie saying that only one black family is rich enough to get out of the hood?

You see?

On top of piece a piece of crap, Christmas With The Kranks is a racist movie.

Now, do I really believe the movie is racist? Of course not. But with this post you see how easy it is to use the left’s “logic” to attack something.

On fact I’d guess that the character of Wes Trogden not written to be a black man. The producers probably threw a black actor into the part because they realized there were too many whites in the film and wanted that glorious “diversity.”

In any case, there you have it. A game of “Hey, That Movie is Racist.”

I haven’t seen Christmas with the Kranks, so I can’t judge Warner’s review and comment, but I did find a cartoon picturing his view of A Christmas Carol:

Beyond that, merry Christmas to all: to Warner, Jim and 914, to Bruce and Hawk and Hank – to Liberal Nightmare and Retired Military, may he find answers to his questions under the tree, to JLawson, Walter, Vagabond and Paul Hoos. To Lawrence and the Glenn Beck Crack Pipe, Michael Becker, Mr. Garand, and Kevin. DJ, the Baron and Laprarie. Ackwired, the most reasonable guy on here. and where’s Herddog? . And to Rodney, may he get a barrel of bitter bile to use in the new year!

Retired military

Merry Christmas Chico No answers under my tree. I think they are in your stocking and you wont share.

Merry Christmas to all.

jim_m

I’ve been wondering about the whereabouts of Herddog lately too. He’s missed.

warnertoddhuston

Of course, Charles Dickens was one of the single biggest capitalists of his day.

Commander_Chico

Right, like Hollywood moguls or Warren Buffett.

warnertoddhuston

I don’t know about all that. I only know that Dickens was one of the first writers to make a fine living just from writing. He was not a man kept by royalty or himself a royal who lived a life of leisure. He worked very hard with his writing. But he also wasn’t a “I’m uh arteest” sort of fellow either. He seems to have felt he was making a product for public consumption. Remembering that he wrote his stories by the chapter and had them printed in the media until the book was done, he often rewrote segments of his story when public sentiment seemed to be telling him to alter a character or situation. When the public spoke, he listened and rewrote. He also went on speaking tours reading his material and was treated like a rock star by fans. When he died he was very, very rich all from writing. And this was more interesting because in his day writers were either subsidized by some rich person or died poor because they refused to treat their work like a business and felt that their work was “art” that must not be sullied or compromised by money. Dickens sort of set a new path for writers and treated his skill as a capitalist venture.

Commander_Chico

Yeah he wrote a lot and made a lot of money. I suppose some of his stuff will endure a long time. I should go back to look at some of his novels, I was not enthusiastic about them when I had to read them in high school.

Brucehenry

Victor Hugo, a contemporary of Dickens and another critic of the rapacious laissez-faire capitalism of his day, enjoyed similar commercial success. Dickens was not unique in his career.

warnertoddhuston

I don’t know about all that. I only know that Dickens was one of the first writers to make a fine living just from writing. He was not a man kept by royalty or himself a royal who lived a life of leisure. He worked very hard with his writing. But he also wasn’t a “I’m uh arteest” sort of fellow either. He seems to have felt he was making a product for public consumption. Remembering that he wrote his stories by the chapter and had them printed in the media until the book was done, he often rewrote segments of his story when public sentiment seemed to be telling him to alter a character or situation. When the public spoke, he listened and rewrote. He also went on speaking tours reading his material and was treated like a rock star by fans. When he died he was very, very rich all from writing. And this was more interesting because in his day writers were either subsidized by some rich person or died poor because they refused to treat their work like a business and felt that their work was “art” that must not be sullied or compromised by money. Dickens sort of set a new path for writers and treated his skill as a capitalist venture.

Commander_Chico

Right, like Hollywood moguls or Warren Buffett.

warnertoddhuston

Of course, Charles Dickens was one of the single biggest capitalists of his day.